


204. nicotine

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [32]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 14:09:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7643914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s so close that Sarah can smell the smoke in her hair, see how her eyes are frantic. In the flickering light of Beth’s life burning Sarah can see that Helena is wearing her shirt. London Calling. It’s the smoke, she’s certain, that’s making her eyes water.</p><p>“I fixed it,” Helena whispers, like a plea. “She separated us, but I put us back together. And now she is gone. And we can be a family. You said you felt it! That it was us. Only <i>us</i>. Not her.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	204. nicotine

When Sarah arrives at Beth’s townhouse, it’s burning.

She staggers backwards, into the crowd of people murmuring outside – _such a loss, no, she was crazy, no, the boyfriend – she smiled at me once – an awful neighbor – such a loss –_ and she can’t take all this secondhand mourning of Beth. She needs to know where Amelia is, because Amelia was supposed to meet her here and now she’s _gone_.

Her phone buzzes. It’s a text. It says: _In the back_.

Sarah circles the house, coughing on smoke, and—

And sees Helena, silhouetted by the firelight. She’s sitting so close to the fire that it seems like it should burn her, but it doesn’t. Sarah can hear a firetruck siren wailing. She hates that her first instinct is to tell Helena to _run_.

“What have you done,” she gasps.

Helena tilts her head to the side. She shrugs. “Mother liked the people who put babies inside her so much that she wanted to be with them always.”

“ _What?_ ” Sarah says, and her voice cracks. Her heart begins a horrible frantic drumming: she just met Amelia and now she and Helena are sitting in front of this fire and she doesn’t see Amelia anywhere, anywhere, anywhere.

Helena skids an envelope across the ground, towards Sarah. Sarah picks it up. Inside is a photo of scientists. _Project LEDA_.

“Helena,” she says, voice frantic, “I don’t understand. Where—”

“Stop asking about her,” Helena roars, and she is standing, and she is closing the space between them. “She doesn’t matter. She left you. She left me with _them_. She doesn’t deserve you.”

She’s so close that Sarah can smell the smoke in her hair, see how her eyes are frantic. In the flickering light of Beth’s life burning Sarah can see that Helena is wearing her shirt. London Calling. It’s the smoke, she’s certain, that’s making her eyes water.

“And you do?” Sarah says.

“I fixed it,” Helena whispers, like a plea. “She separated us, but I put us back together. And now she is gone. And we can be a family. You said you felt it! That it was _us_. Only us. Not her.”

“Helena,” Sarah says slowly, “where did she _go_.”

Sirens wail, louder now. She can hear the busy murmur of people in front of the house, _Beth_ and _Beth_ and _Beth_. Sarah’s breath leaves her lungs in jagged pants, smoke-breathing like a dragon. A timber collapses, showers sparks.

“I did it for you,” Helena whispers. Pauses. “No. For us.” She nods decisively at the last part. Sarah can’t tell in the firelight whether or not there is blood on her hands.

“No you didn’t,” she whispers.

Helena’s face goes dark and murderous and Sarah wonders if that’s the last thing Amelia ever saw – Helena’s face all stormclouds and smoke, things that prelude natural disasters. Helena fists her hands in Sarah’s shirt and Sarah, frantic, _pushes_ her.

They stumble together, linked, and in front of Sarah: the fire, and behind Helena: the fire. Helena falling. The fire. Helena’s eyes on hers, wide, surprised, hurt, and then

she lets Sarah go.

Sarah stumbles backwards, away from the pyre. Helena doesn’t manage it.

She screams so loud. She screams so loud, and she wanted to be Sarah’s family, and no: it isn’t the smoke that is burning at Sarah’s eyes. She can’t look away, though. She can see it when Helena stumbles her way out of the fire, burning and burning and howling at the top of her lungs. Angry angel, that’s what the kid had called her. Holy holy holy.

Helena seems to have run out of words; she just screams, a terrible howl. Sarah stumbles backwards. Helena walks towards her, relentless. Slowly on her skin the fire goes out.

The sound of sirens. Not ambulances, this time, and close. So close.

The two of them freeze. Sarah is hypnotized by Helena’s eyes. They look so awfully, terribly sad.

Flashlights sweep the side of the townhouse: the police coming for their own, or whatever is left of their own in the charred bones of this house. Sarah stumbles forwards, slams her hands into Helena’s shoulders to put the rest of the fire out.

“Go,” she says, and then: “run,” and Helena’s screaming dwindles like smoke. For one second Sarah thinks she’s going to say _I love you_ again, but she doesn’t. She just reaches up one hand; it hovers in the air between Sarah’s face and her throat. Sarah doesn’t know which one she’s reaching for.

And then Helena lets out a breath that is something like a sob, and runs off into the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> FELIX: How do we know this wasn't Helena again, Sarah?  
> SARAH: It wasn't her.  
> FELIX: How do you know?  
> SARAH: I can just -- feel it, okay? It wasn't her.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
